Creating a Journal Rule in Exchange 2007

In the previous article in this series (Learn the Basics of Journaling in Exchange Server 2007), I talked about how Exchange 2007 journaling differs from journaling in Exchange 2003. That article also discussed some of the basic concepts behind Exchange 2007 journaling. In this article, we will put the theory into practice as I walk you through the process of creating a journaling rule.

Enabling the Journaling Agent

The process of creating a journal rule is fairly straightforward, but before any of the rules that you create will work, you must enable the Journal Agent. To do so, you must open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command:

Get-TransportAgent

When you enter this command, you will see a summary indicating which transport agents are enabled, as shown in Figure A.

Figure A – You must enable the Journaling Agent prior to using Journal Rules.

When you look at this report, you should see that the Journaling Agent is enabled, but if not, then enter the following commands to enable it:

Enable-Transport Agent

You should now be prompted as to which transport agent you want to enable. Type Journaling Agent and press Enter. Now, enter the Get-TransportAgent command one more time to verify that the agent has been enabled.

Now that the Journaling Agent is enabled, we can move forward with creating a journaling rule. Begin the process by going to your Hub transport server and opening the Exchange Management Console. Now, navigate through the console tree to Organization Configuration -> Hub Transport. When you do, the results pane should display a number of different tabs.

Select the Journaling tab, and then click the New Journal Rule link found in the Actionspane. When you do, the console will launch the New Journal Rule wizard, shown in Figure B. You will notice in the figure that I have already filled out the wizard’s various fields. I have done this to make it easier to understand what I am talking about as you read the rest of this article.

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Figure B – The New Journal Rule wizard allows you to create a new journal rule

The first thing that this wizard requires you to do is to enter a name for the new rule that you are creating. You can call the rule anything that you want, but I recommend using a descriptive name.

Next, click the Browse button and you will see a list of all of the mailboxes in the Exchange organization. Choose the mailbox that you want journaling reports to be sent to, and then click OK.

Now, you must choose the rule’s scope. You have the option of using a global scope (journal all messages), and internal scope (journal internal messages only), or an external scope (journal messages to or from external users).

The next thing that you must do is to specify which user’s messages will be journaled. To do so, select the Journal Messages for Recipient check box, and then click the Browse button located beneath it. When you click the Browse button, you will see a list of all of the organization’s mailboxes, distribution groups, and public folders. Unless you are trying to single out a specific user, it’s usually best to create a distribution group that you can use for journaling. Make your selection and click OK.

Finally, verify that the Enable Rule check box is selected, and click New. When you do, the Exchange Management Console will display the new rule, and will show it as being enabled, as shown in Figure C.

Figure C – The new journaling rule is displayed within the Exchange Management Console

Conclusion

In this article, I have explained how to create journal rules in Exchange Server 2007 that can be used to journal content related to specific users, distribution groups, or public folders. the vastly improved journaling functionality is one of the valuable new features of Exchange 2007 Server.